JOIN OUR WHATSAPP CHANNEL
What Is Astroturfing And How Was It Allegedly Used Against Blake Lively? Find Out
Blake Lively’s legal complaint against Justin Baldoni has brought Astroturfing, a controversial PR tactic, into the spotlight. Here's everything you need to know.
Blake Lively is at the center of a legal case over a controversial public relations tactic called Astroturfing. The actress has accused her It Ends with Us co-star and director, Justin Baldoni, of sexual harassment and alleged that his PR team used astroturfing as part of a smear campaign to harm her reputation.
Astroturfing is a strategy where PR firms create the illusion of grassroots support or backlash to manipulate public opinion. In Blake Lively’s case, her complaint claims that Baldoni’s crisis PR firm, The Agency Group (TAG PR), orchestrated social media efforts to label her as 'controlling' and 'difficult' during the film’s production.
Astroturfing gets its name from synthetic grass and is meant to mimic genuine grassroots movements. Dr. Joan Donovan, a professor at Boston University, describes it as faking a crowd.
She explains, “When social media accounts, whether fake or real, are coordinated to push a narrative, it’s astroturfing. These campaigns aren’t organic. They’re designed to look like genuine public opinion, but they’re completely manufactured.”
Experts say the tactic has evolved with social media. Dr. Chico Camargo, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute, notes that it’s no longer just bots. “Real people are often paid or incentivized to post coordinated content,” he says. “This makes it harder to distinguish genuine engagement from fabricated campaigns.”
Camargo adds that astroturfing has been used for years, from propaganda to corporate PR. He states that if you want buzz around a movie so you might pay people to post on social media or show up at a theater to create a trend. He added that even though that sounds harmless, it’s still astroturfing.
Lively’s complaint alleges that TAG PR exploited misogynistic stereotypes to damage her reputation. She claims the firm coordinated efforts to portray her negatively, playing into harmful gender-based tropes.
Dr. Donovan draws parallels to the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial, where coordinated online narratives targeted Heard. She says that misogyny on social media is rampant. She added that PR firms know this and use it to their advantage by leaning into these biases.
In response, Baldoni’s legal team has denied the claims, calling them false and intentionally salacious. Bryan Freedman, a lawyer for TAG PR, stated that the firm operated within industry norms, saying that it operated as any other crisis management firm would when hired by a client experiencing threats by two extremely powerful people with unlimited resources.
Latest Articles
